We discussed two main identifying features of impressionist art: using individual brush strokes without blending, and interest in light and how it affects the look of things. M remembered how when looking at the paintings up close, they look like a bunch of jumbled splots, but from far away you can get the idea or “impression” of the subject.

Then we explored with painting in the impressionist style. We loosely followed suggestions from this activity, but this art project sounds fun too. We pretended to be in Monet’s garden, painting his waterlily pond and Japanese bridge. We started making our water with various shades of blue, green and purple. Then highlighted the water with white. M wanted to paint the bridge (the activity we were following made bridges out of construction paper instead and added tissue paper waterlilies, which we did not do). C ended up painting both her arms too. It’s really not surprising that C got more paint on herself than the toddler! The toddler insisted on having all the colors to paint with, but M, C and I stuck with the water hues. I also want to mention that never again will I paint on construction paper, even if it is suggested by the project we are following. It always wrinkles so much when dry! Only use thick painting paper!!